Ceremony of Carols

More hospitals today, but we’re home so I’m going with festive.

This has to be our most played Christmas CD (the second one we’ve had, we wore out the first). We played the first part (Ceremony of Carols) after we arrived home yesterday, exhausted. And we did the same thing today late afternoon.

Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols is just brilliant, and the version on this CD is really good. The back story is interesting. Britten returned to England from the USA in 1942. The ship stopped in Halifax, Nova Scotia on the way and he picked up a book of English medieval poetry there and began setting some of the texts to music as the ship crossed the Atlantic. The music and the arrangements are just inspired.

Mind you, I was also impressed by a nurse’s rendition of “Lonely this Christmas” this morning. Roll over Les Gray of Mud.